Day 5 - A day on our own, petting the Kangaroo

Today Tom and I took the day off from cycling to take in a few of the sights (since we opted not to extend our trip at all in order to get back to Alex). We were still up at 0600 and unable to go back to sleep so we grabbed breakfast and then off to the Adelaide Zoo. They have a children’s petting area where you actually get to pet and feed the kangaroo. Tom and I were both hesitant to touch the animals, not sure if they would startle. Then a little two year old girl comes running past us and hugs the kangaroo around the neck, like it’s a dog. We both laughed and decided it was safe to touch him. It was surprising how open most of the cages are, it feels as though the animals could just walk out of the displays. The zoo was great but seeing all those kiddos made me miss having ours so we made yet another call home to see how Alex was doing. Grandma reports he is doing fine and slept all the way though the night for her last night. They are taking him to all of the hot kid spots in Salem. We really miss him and tears always fill my eyes during every call but he seems to be doing great and so does Grandma and Grandpa. We are over half way though so we will see him soon, I can’t wait.
We had lunch and then went to check out the National Wine Institute in Adelaide. It had a large interactive display on wine making. Towards the end we were able to make our own virtual wine by answering questions on how we would prepare and bottle our wine, my shiraz was a silver wine with a good bold taste, Tom’s was “appalling”, and would ruin Australia’s good name in wine making. Then we sat down to do some wine tasting. We were also able to get in a little shopping and a rest today before meeting one of the guys from our group for a Thai dinner. Better get to bed, tomorrow we are up at 0400 for the Community Challenge Ride.